If You Had To
A/N: This story takes place when Artemis is ten years old. He hasn't lost his father yet and hasn't even started to think about the People. There will be no fairy-folk in this story.
Artemis had been twisting and turning for hours. It seemed that sleep would continue to elude him so long as his mind was bubbling with his latest schemes. At last he gave up and decided to try and clear his head. The problem was he couldn't think of anything he would enjoy doing at three in the morning that wouldn't add to his problem. Anything he would care to learn about on the internet would just give him more to think about.
Then a thought occurred to him, why not watch some television? It wasn't something he usually did. He could find out about any current affairs or subjects of documentaries from other sources which didn't have commercials. He also felt the activity was mildly mind-numbing, but a mind-numbing was just what he was looking for just then.
He made his way to the living room where he would be sure to not wake his parents and turned on the large screen which took up most of the wall. As he flicked through the channels he let out a sigh of disappointment, because of the late hour most of the stations were playing infomercials, Artemis knew that he could never be bored enough to want to watch those. Finally he settled upon a cartoon channel. Watching cartoons was a bit out of character for him but he was technically a child still and at least it had a plot.
He recognized the show playing as Scooby-Doo, one of the many shows his well-meaning mother had tried to get him to enjoy in an effort to make him relate more to children his own age.
Half an hour later he turned the television off in disgust. He had known the show would be ridiculous, he just hadn't remembered just how bad it was. This particular episode had involved the "gang" getting lost on the way to some rock concert that they apparently forget about for the rest of the show and winding up in some backwater town. The town happened to be being troubled by a "dark voodoo curse" which seemed to consist of a man in a mockery of a traditional African warrior's "costume" chasing the locals and making an odd screeching noise.
Needless to say by the end of the episode the teens and their dog had captured the "Tiki Terror" through a series of misadventures and revealed him to simply be an ordinary man, a fact which should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain in the first place, who had wanted to scare away the locals so he could become wealthy from the oil he had discovered under the town.
Artemis thought the whole thing was completely preposterous. If it had been him trying to get that oil he would have gotten the hopeless hicks of the town to sell him their land and then anything he "happened" to find on or under it would legally belong to him.
Artemis yawned, it seemed he was finally ready to sleep. He continued to think as he went back up the stairs to his room.
But then, he supposed, the show would lose its appeal to its intended audience if it did not have the element of the "scary" monster which might or might not just be someone in a mask. It would also be rather dull if Mystery Inc. became Property Owner's Rights and Protection Inc.
As he climbed into bed Artemis wondered, what would he do if he absolutely had to make the crime involve a ridiculous monster chasing and scaring the locals? It was then that he nodded off into what promised to be a very intriguing dream sequence.
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"Zoinks! Like, I'm starved Scoob!" cried Shaggy in his standard form as he had still failed to realize he had an eating disorder possibly derived from the psychological scarring he got from being named Norville.
"Re roo!(Me too!)" said Scooby, once again forcing his tortured vocal cords to make sounds no loving god had ever intended. The Great Dane couldn't remember his past very well but he had vague memories of a dark castle where a madman had operated upon his brain and throat. The experience had left him traumatized and had thus caused his constant fear of all supernatural settings and creatures.
The gang was once again on the run from the government agents who wanted to kidnap and experiment upon Scooby in the hopes of creating an army of super-intelligent canines. They would often seek out backwater towns and out-of-the-way homes, pretending to be lost on the way to a concert or something but really hoping for a few days shelter as they journeyed toward Canada and freedom.
Ironically the town they had just entered was called Backwaterville. The town seemed almost deserted except for the Stubborn Hillbilly Couple who were currently having a rather loud argument in the middle of the street.
"Quick!" cried Mrs. Stubborn Hillbilly, "It's time to introduce the central plot!"
Mr. Stubborn Hillbilly cleared his throat, "Dag-nabit Alice, we've got to leave town before that thing gets us!"
"I ain't doing no such thing Danny. My family's lived in this here town for fifteen generations and I ain't leaving just because of some stupid Tiki monster."
Fred, being the nosey brat he was, decided to investigate the cause of this strange argument.
"Excuse me," he said, "but what is this Tiki monster?"
The couple of course had no problem with this interruption. They had been hoping that someone would look into their Tiki problem for some time now; they had been shouting this same conversation for days on the off-chance someone would pass by and take interest.
"Oh he's a horrible monster," said Mrs. Stubborn Hillbilly. "He haunts the town at night, terrifying the town-folk. He's made almost everyone skip town!" She really liked word town.
"Have you called the police?" asked Fred.
"Of course, I can't believe we didn't think of that! Thank you kind stranger, we'll do that right now."
These last statements are what should have happened, of course they didn't because Fred is a smug glory hog. It is at least hoped that he is anyway, if not he's just an idiot. What actually happened was that the "Tiki Terror" appeared at the top of a near-by hill and made a mysterious ghost-like howl.
"Woooooooooo," said Butler with a bored voice. He then shook his hands in a spooky manner and jumped of the hill and out of sight.
"Zoinks!" cried Shaggy as Scooby leaped into his arms.
"What was that?" asked Daphne using one her three semi-relevant lines of the episode.
"More importantly," added Fred, exercising superiority over his possible girlfriend, "how did it disappear like that?"
"Disappear?" asked a small boy in the background. "It didn't disappear, it just jumped out of sight—."
Velma cut him off, "Obviously that was the ghost of an Indian warrior who is seeking vengeance for the defilement of his sacred land. We should investigate."
The small boy rubbed his head as though in pain. "How is any of that obvious? Why are you just assuming it's a ghost rather than a guy in a costume? Ghosts have never been proven to exist, even in all the mysteries you've been in and yet you still immediately go for the more far-fetched explanation? Even if it was a ghost why would it be seeking vengeance now after all the centuries there's been a white settlement on his tribe's former lands? And for the sake of all things holy are you calling it a Tiki ghost? That would make it from Hawaii if anywhere in America. I'm not sure exactly where we are in these boonies but it is certainly not Hawaii."
The gang stared at the boy for a few minutes as they attempted to absorb what he had said. Apparently the attempt failed as they all immediately went back to ignoring him.
"Well gang," said Fred, "it looks like we have another mystery on our hands, let's split up and look for clues."
The boy stared after them and for a moment his façade of the charming average American schoolboy fell to reveal the genius within as Artemis shook his head in disgust.
"They're going to look for clues," he said feeling almost nauseous. "They're looking for clues about what they are already certain is a ghost. What are they looking for, ectoplasmic ooze? I hope Butler brought some anti-acids, I'm going to need them."
Back at the "evil lair" so to speak Artemis would have liked to have seen video feed from the many monitors and computers he would have liked to set up but he was restricted to the technology of the 1960's and was thus forced to have his security limited to looking out a window to see if anyone was coming. This didn't bother him much though, the people in this town were probably idiotic enough to not even notice the window, let alone someone staring out of it.
"Tell me again what we're doing here Master Artemis," said Butler. He normally wouldn't question his employer's motives but he had never had to participate in an operation this humiliating before. He was wearing an idiotic costume, howling, and scaring people, it was pathetic. He was just glad Juliet wasn't there to see him.
"It's true Butler, I wouldn't usually go to such dim-witted lengths to gain oil, especially when there are so many better ways for me to gain great amounts of money, but I simply had to test myself against this "Mystery Inc." From what I've researched about them they seem absolutely incompetent but they continue to be successful in solving crimes that the local police force has been baffled by. It intrigues me, that and the fact that they have an uncanny knack for only finding mysteries where someone is wearing a costume and trying to scare people off."
"So what is our next move?"
Artemis smiled, "Well, traditionally this is the point where the detectives happen to find clues, which I haven't left, and are chased around by the monster until he is caught in their trap and they can have a dramatic unmasking. I think we should avoid the comedic chase scene and deal with our enemy through more subtle means."
He then pulled out what appeared to be a box of Scooby Snacks (Artemis had no idea how the dog had managed to create his own brand of canine treats and he had a feeling he didn't want to know). Butler looked at the box questioningly.
"What are those? They're obviously not just that dog's normal biscuits." Butler tried to avoid saying Scooby's name, he found that saying it made him lose any remote respect he had for his enemy.
His enemy.
He was fighting against a talking dog.
Oh, god.
Artemis interrupted the manservant's thoughts, "Yes these are actually "Scooby Snacks" despite my theories they don't really have any addictive components to them. Apparently they just taste good to dogs and certain hippies. I have laced the ones in this box with a poison, nothing fatal just enough to make the consumer seriously ill. At some point Norville and the dog will want some of their favorite treat and will have switched their current supply with this. It might be enough to get them all out of town but at the very least their numbers shall be reduced by two."
Meanwhile the gang was beginning to get frustrated, they had been searching for hours but hadn't been able to find any clues. Finally Fred, Daphne, and Velma decided to do what they always did when they got bored or stuck in a mystery, they found the creepiest place in town and told Shaggy and Scooby to go inside. The place in this case was a dark, spooky cave full of vampire bats "who obviously knew something about the Tiki Ghost but needed someone to wake them up first."
"Like, no way man," said Shaggy. "We're not going into that spooky cave full of bats that can't possibly have anything to do with this mystery and you can't make us!"
"Reah! (Yeah!)" agreed Scooby, "Ro ray! (No way!)"
Velma was feeling a bit sadistic just then so she decided to make them go into the cave with an offer they couldn't refuse.
"Would you do it for FIVE Scooby Snacks?"
It would have been noted how quickly Shaggy and Scooby agreed and ate their doggy treats but it happened a bit too fast to see. All the rest of the gang knew was that the Scooby Snack box was missing ten biscuits and that a few moments later their friends were on the ground writhing in agony.
No one knew what to do for a moment, they weren't used to seeing people actually being in pain so it was a bit of a shock. Finally Velma, still feeling a bit sadistic, went to go get her camera. Daphne went with her being too terrified to be people who were moaning in pain like Shaggy and Scooby.
Having been left alone to deal with the situation Fred decided to be responsible and hauled his sick friends into the Mystery Machine. He promised to take them to a good hospital but no one knows if he did as they were never heard from again.
Artemis saw all this occur from the clever vantage point of being right next to them. Damn, these people were unobservant. He had been about to replace the Scooby Snacks box with the one he had tampered with but had been a moment to late. It didn't really matter though as the dog treats in the gang's box had gone stale anyway.
"Well, that's three down." He then went to seek out Velma.
He found her about twenty meters away from where the Mystery Machine had just been. She had apparently tripped and lost her glasses and was now on her hands and knees looking for them. Artemis decided to lend a hand and placed the glasses back on Velma's face.
She looked up at him gratefully but then frowned, "You're that background boy from before, and you've been watching us this whole time haven't you? You're the one behind this mystery!"
Artemis quirked an eyebrow, "You really are the smart one aren't you? Your lack of evidence is rather discouraging but at least you know more than the rest of your group. I'll tell you what, I'll pay for some laser eye surgery for you if you forget this whole thing."
"Deal!" And Velma the Blind became known as Velma the Sightful for the rest of her days.
As for Daphne, everyone forgot about her but as she was the last to leave the town she somehow came to own it and thus its oil (Artemis had lost interest after his victory,) and became filthy rich. With her money she started a clinic for victims of supernatural paranoia, her top patients were three who seemed vaguely similar to Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby except completely insane from having gotten lost in an actually haunted forest for three years.
Velma later rejoined Daphne and they formed a rock band which became quite successful.
The Tiki monster disappeared.
Artemis woke up and decided to never watch T.V. again.
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A/N: All out of character characters are intentionally so. This is the Scooby gang through the eyes of a condescending criminal genius who was having a bit of fun toying with their back-story. I fully blame anything that doesn't make sense on the dream aspect of this story. I hope you've enjoyed this, if you have please read my other Artemis story The Charity Case. Ok that was a shameless plug but I'm very proud of that story. This has been a one-shot so don't look for anymore chapters. Just to warn you. Thanks again for reading bye!